Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 focuses both on managers and potential managers as to help them develop people skills. Recognition of the
importance of developing managers interpersonal skills is closely tied to the need for organizations to get and keep
high performing employees. An understanding that technical skills are necessary has been attained, however technical
skills are not enough to succeed in management. Managers cant succeed on their technical skills alone. They also
have to have good people skills if they are going to be effective and successful.
What do managers do? A very important question one should ask. Mangers get things done through other people.
They plan, organize, lead and control. Management roles are namely interpersonal, informational and decisional. Still
another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they need to achieve their goals.
Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills namely technical, human and conceptual. Technical skills
encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. Human skills are the ability to work with,
understand and motivate other people, both individually and in groups. Managers must have the mental ability to
analyze and diagnose complex situations, these tasks require conceptual skills.
The term used to describe the discipline of people skills is named Organizational Behavior (OB). OB is a field of
study that investigates the impact that individuals and groups have on behavior within organizations. OB is conducted
for the purpose of improving an organizations effectiveness. To sum up our definition, OB is simply concerned with
the study of what people do in an organization and how their behavior affects the organizations performance. There is
increasing agreement as to the components or topics that constitute the subject area of OB. OB includes the core topics
of motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, learning,
attitude development and perception, conflict, work design and work stress.

Complementing intuition with systematic study.

Every human has that thing of looking at the actions of a person and try to interpret what we see. Reading people
happens automatically even if you were not intending to. Most of the time the interpretation we make are not true.
However its possible to improve your predictive ability by supplementing your intuitive opinions with a more
systematic approach. Intuition is a feeling not supported by research and systematic study looks at relationships,
attempt to attribute causes and effects, and draw conclusions based on scientific evidence. The objective is to
encourage you to enhance your intuitive views of behavior with a systematic analysis such that it will improve your
accuracy in explaining and predicting behavior. The advice is to use evidence as much as possible to inform your
intuition and experience.

Disciplines that contribute to the OB field

Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built on contributions from a number of behavioral
disciplines. The predominant areas are psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology and political science.
Psychology focuses on the individual or micro level of analysis while the other disciplines have contributed to our
understanding of macro concepts such as group processes. The figure below shows a clearer understanding about the
disciplines.

Psychology
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Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals. Those who
have contributed and continue to add to the knowledge of OB are learning theorists, personality theorists, counseling
psychologists, and, most important, industrial and organizational psychologists.

Social Psychology
Social psychology, generally considered a branch of psychology, blends concepts from both psychology and
sociology to focus on peoples influence on one another. One major study area is change how to implement it and
how to reduce barriers to its acceptance.

Sociology
While psychology focuses on the individual, sociology studies people in relation to their social environment or
culture.

Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.

Political science
The study of behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment.

There are few absolutes in OB

There are few simple and universal principles that explain organizational behavior since human beings are complex.
The ability to make simple, accurate and sweeping generations is limited. Two people react differently in the same
situation and the same person behavior changes depending on the situations. It can be said that x leads y, but only
under conditions specified in z- the contingency variables. People are complex and complicated and so too must be
the theories developed to explain their actions.

Challenges & Opportunities for Managers in Applying OB Concepts

Response to Economic Pressures
Managing employees well when economic times are tough is just as hard as when economic times are good, and thus the
OB approaches may differ at times. In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy, and retain employees is at a
premium. In bad times, issues like stress, decision-making, and coping come to the fore.

Response to Globalization
Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders and the world has become a global village. In the process,
the managers job has changed. As a result, the following can be expected:

Increased foreign assignments, (effectively managing a workforce very different in needs, aspirations, and
attitudes from those back home).

Working with people from different backgrounds (working with bosses, peers, and other employees born and
raised in different cultures). Management practices need to be modified to reflect the values of the different
countries in which an organization operates.

Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor. Managers face the difficult task of balancing
the interests of their organization with their responsibilities to the communities in which they operate.

Managing Workforce Diversity

One of the most important challenges for organizations is adapting to people who are different. Workforce diversity
acknowledges a workforce of women and men; many racial and ethnic groups; individuals with a variety of physical
or psychological abilities; and people who differ in age and sexual orientation. Managing this diversity is a global
concern. Important questions we may ask are: How can we leverage differences within groups for competitive
advantage? Should we treat all employees alike? Should we recognize individual and cultural differences? How can
we foster cultural awareness in employees without lapsing into political correctness? What are the legal requirements
in each country? Does diversity even matter?

Improving Customer Service

Many organizations have failed because its employees failed to please customers. Management needs to create a
customer-responsive culture. OB can provide considerable guidance in helping managers create such culturesin
which employees are friendly and courteous, accessible, knowledgeable, prompt in responding to customer needs, and
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willing to do whats necessary to please the customer.

Improving People Skills

OB presents concepts and theories that can help explain and predict the behavior of people at work. In addition, the
manager can gain insights into specific people skills that can be used on the job. For instance, ways to design
motivating jobs, techniques for improving listening skills, and how to create more effective teams.

Stimulating Innovation & Change

Todays successful organizations must foster innovation and master the art of change, or theyll become candidates for
extinction. Victory will go to the organizations that maintain their flexibility, continually improve their quality, and
beat their competition to the marketplace with a constant stream of innovative products and services. The challenge
for managers is to stimulate their employees creativity and tolerance for change. The field of OB provides a wealth of
ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these goals.

Coping With Temporariness

Globalization, expanded capacity, and advances in technology have required organizations to be fast and flexible if
they are to survive. The result is that most managers and employees today work in a climate best characterized as
temporary.
Workers must continually update their knowledge and skills to perform new job requirements. Todays managers and
employees must learn to cope with temporariness, flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability. The study of OB can
help the manager better understand a work world of continual change, overcome resistance to change, and create an
organizational culture that thrives on change.

Working in Networked Organizations

Networked organizations allow people to communicate and work together even though they may be thousands of
miles apart. Independent contractors can telecommute via computer to workplaces around the globe and change
employers as the demand for their services changes. The managers job is different in a networked organization.
Motivating and leading people and making collaborative decisions online requires different techniques than when
individuals are physically present in a single location. As more employees do their jobs by linking to others through
networks, managers must develop new skills. OB can provide valuable insights to help with honing those skills.

Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts

Employees are increasingly complaining that the line between work and non-work time has become blurred, creating
personal conflicts and stress. At the same time, todays workplace presents opportunities for workers to create and
structure their own roles. The need to consult with colleagues or customers eight or ten time zones away means many
employees of global firms are on call 24 hours a day. Organizations that dont help their people achieve worklife
balance will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain the most capable and motivated employees. The field of
OB offers a number of suggestions to guide managers in designing workplaces and jobs that can help employees deal
with worklife conflicts.

Creating a Positive Work Environment

Although competitive pressures on most organizations are stronger than ever, some organizations are trying to realize
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a competitive advantage by fostering a positive work environment. A real growth area in OB research is positive
organizational scholarship (also called positive organizational behavior), which studies how organizations develop
human strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential. Although positive organizational scholarship does
not deny the value of the negative (such as critical feedback), it does challenge researchers to look at OB through a
new lens and pushes organizations to exploit employees strengths rather than dwell on their limitations.

Improving Ethical Behavior

In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing productivity, and tough competition,
its not surprising many employees feel pressured to cut corners, break rules, and engage in other questionable
practices.
Increasingly they face ethical dilemmas and ethical choices, in which they are required to identify right and wrong
conduct.
Todays manager must create an ethically healthy climate for his or her employees, where they can do their work
productively with minimal ambiguity about what right and wrong behaviors are. Companies that promote a strong
ethical mission, encourage employees to behave with integrity, and provide strong ethical leadership can influence
employee decisions to behave ethically.

The OB Model
Figure 1 presents the skeleton on which the OB model is constructed. It proposes three types of variables (inputs,
processes, and outcomes) at three levels of analysis (individual, group, and organizational). The model proceeds from
left to right, with inputs leading to processes and processes leading to outcomes. Notice that the model also shows that
outcomes can influence inputs in the future.

Variables

Inputs are the variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that lead to processes.
These variables set the stage for what will occur in an organization later.

Processes are actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs and that lead to
certain outcomes.

Outcomes are the key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other
variables.

Figure 1: OB Model